Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will deal first with the survey and research aspects. As outlined on 18 October 2017 and again on 22 November 2017, the research commissioned is to inform Government communications. It is intended to help the Department learn more about public awareness and understanding of Government services. As outlined in the Secretary General's review, the intention is to continue with the citizen survey after Opposition parties have had an opportunity to be briefed and to give their views on it. The research will inform best practice and support evidence based decision making on communications policies and approaches across government. When I last checked, work on this had not commenced and, as such, no survey has been done as yet and nothing has been done in the field. We have given a commitment that Opposition parties will be consulted on the questions before a survey is carried out. The issue has been de-prioritised. While it is still intended to carry out the survey at some point in the future, it is not a priority at the moment.

It is not necessary to do research in advance when it comes, for example, to finding out whether people know about Project Ireland 2040. How could people possibly know about something that had not yet been launched? I am sure the same approach was taken with regard to the national development programme and Transport 21. We do not need research to tell us that people did not know about Transport 21 before it had been launched because it would not be possible for people to know about something that was a new policy or programme. That is, therefore, a rather facile argument.

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